Fig. 2. The leaf of the capital on the right hand, at the top of [Plate XII.] in this volume. The lobes worked in the same manner, with deep black drill holes between their points.
Fig. 3. One of the leaves of fig. 14, [Plate VIII.] Vol. II. fully unfolded. The lobes worked in the same manner, but left shallow, so as not to destroy the breadth of light; the central line being drawn by drill holes, and the interstices between lobes cut black and deep.
Fig. 4. Leaf with flower; pure Byzantine work, showing whence the treatment of all the other leaves has been derived.
Fig. 6. For the sake of symmetry, this is put in the centre: it is the earliest of the three in this row; taken from the Madonnetta House, where the capitals have leaves both at their sides and angles. The tall angle leaf, with its two lateral ones, is given in the plate; and there is a remarkable distinction in the mode of workmanship of these leaves, which, though found in a palace of the Byzantine period, is indicative of a tendency to transition; namely, that the sharp furrow is now drawn only to the central lobe of each division of the leaf, and the rest of the surface of the leaf is left nearly flat, a slight concavity only marking the division of the extremities. At the base of these leaves they are perfectly flat, only cut by the sharp and narrow furrow, as an elevated table-land is by ravines.
Fig. 5. A more advanced condition; the fold at the recess, between each division of the leaf, carefully expressed, and the concave or depressed portions of the extremities marked more deeply, as well as the central furrow, and a rib added in the centre.
Fig. 7. A contemporary, but more finished form; the sharp furrows becoming softer, and the whole leaf more flexible.
Fig. 8. An exquisite form of the same period, but showing still more advanced naturalism, from a very early group of third order windows, near the Church of St. Eustachio on the Grand Canal.
Fig. 9. Of the same time, from a small capital of an angle shaft of the sarcophagi at the side of St. John and Paul, in the little square which is adorned by the Colleone statue. This leaf is very quaint and pretty in giving its midmost lateral divisions only two lobes each, instead of the usual three or four.
Fig. 10. Leaf employed in the cornice of the tomb of the Doge Giovanni Soranzo, who died in 1312. It nods over, and has three ribs on its upper surface; thus giving us the completed ideal form of the leaf, but its execution is still very archaic and severe.